Burn Fat for a Good Nights Sleep

Many people who have taken the Tonic H.E.A.L Academy Beat Sugar ecourse have reported that they now sleep much better. It’s common for someone with blood sugar imbalance to have disturbed sleep and wake frequently through the night. Here’s an explanation as to why that might be:

When your body is craving carbs and sugar, you tend to rely on this for energy – which is a very short lived energy supply as they burn really quickly which creates a high, then a low in your energy.

A properly nourished body with stable blood sugar will burn fat at rest – and while you sleep. In fact your ability to sleep through the night depends on this very ability to burn fat as fuel – not carbohydrate. Fat is a very long lasting fuel which can keep you going for at least 8 or 9 hours – which is around how long you should be sleeping for ideally.

If your body is not used to burning fat – only sugars and other quick burning carbs – you will find yourself waking every few hours. This is your body running out of energy to get you through the night. So essentially your body wakes you to look for food.

If you want to try the Beat Sugar ecourse the full details are at www.tonichealacademy.com. It’s really fun and we have a great support group of students over in the Clients Only area. The healing results are great too because training your body to burn fat for fuel instead of carbs will really kick off a great weight loss if you need it.

Moderation? Junk will damage you every time.

We all know that feeding our children – or ourselves – processed foods isn’t a good idea. But I think many of us believe that it’s unhealthy if eaten to excess and a little now and again won’t hurt. Well I would disagree. It’s unhealthy and dangerous every time you eat it.

Processed foods have many additives, one of which commonly being a derivative of coal tar. Yes… COAL TAR! This additive has been especially linked to hyperactivity in children.

You wouldn’t directly spoon coal tar into your children’s mouth, so why feed it to them disguised as food? Coal tar can be found in many artificially yellow or orange junk foods like soda (such as Mountain Dew) or cheese “flavoured” products like tortilla chips (Doritos – USA) or Kraft products. It’s not only these brands (and it may not be in all of their products), these additives are in a whole host of processed and packaged foods commonly lining our supermarket shelves. In fact, even foods like pickles may have been artificially coloured to make them look more appealing. 

Coal Tar – Tartrazine (which is actually added to some corporate named slimming products too, like the ones which claim to be “medically supervised”). It is also linked to thyroid tumours. When reading labels it may come under a different name such as E102 or Yellow 5. Apparently products Tartrazine within the EU have to carry a warning label so many products sold there have very different ingredients to those sold in the US where they have no such regulations. In fact, if you check the ingredients of Doritos in the UK they will not have Tartrazine, however check the US ingredients and it will. Also, interestingly, if you check the ingredients in Capri-Sun it will list high fructose corn syrup in the US, but not in the UK. (Not that it makes them any healthier though!).

Junk products, either in excess or in moderation, will still harm you every time you consume them. “Oh a little won’t hurt…” Yes. It will.

Sources:
http://www.naturalnews.com/029886_industrial_waste_pickle.h…http://www.naturalnews.com/030293_artificial_colors_hyperac…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartrazinehttp://www.additivesinfood.info/codes/102

Here, have some treats. With love from me to you x

So I’ve been away visiting family in Teesside and beavering away writing e-courses so I haven’t had time to make any treats for a while. So, I thought I’d share a few of my favourites from the archive so you have some healthiness to try over the weekend . Don’t forget to share if you like it! 

1. Healthy Snickers!
Nougat: 1 cup raw flour. (I used ground almonds but next time I’ll add a little oat flour too). 1/2 cup soaked cashews, 1 tbsp agave, 1 tsp vanilla essence.

Caramel: 10 medjool dates, 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1/4 tsp salt. A little warm water. Stir in 1 tbsp chopped nuts after blending.

Chocolate: make your own raw chocolate or melted pure dark chocolate will be fine.

Method:
Blend nougat ingredients, mould into shapes then freeze for 30 mins

Blend caramel adding water a little at a time. It should be really thick so it doesn’t slide off when you spread it on the nougat.

Spread on nougat then freeze for another 20 mins or until pretty hard.

Cover in melted chocolate and refrigerate for 10 mins. Keep in the freezer. They’ll only take 20 mins to defrost when you want one wink emoticon

2. The Fatty. An awesome creamy green smoothie:

3 bananas
1 handful kale
1 handful spinach
1 tbsp ground flax
2 kiwis
Water
Top with 2 tbsp coconut cream

3. Peanut Butter Crunch Ice Cream:

Peanut butter chocolate crunch ice cream over maple overnight oats.
I made this for my hubby to refuel after his morning bike race.

Oats soaked in almond milk and maple syrup overnight
Nana-icecream – 2 ripe frozen bananas blended with 2 tbsp crunchy organic peanut butter and a little almond milk.
Scoop over the oats and put back in the freezer for 10 minutes while you’re melting the chocolate. I used pure dark organic. (I could have made it with coconut oil and raw cacao but I ran out)
Drizzle over your cold ice cream and top with peanuts.
The chocolate will cool and crisp up nicely.

Vegan Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Effing gorgeous.

Sunday baking. Egg free, gluten free and dairy free “little bit of everything” chocolate chunk cookies.

These are super low sugar, probably only 3g per decent cookie. A regular store bought cookie will be at least 10g.

Really easy, chuck it in and blitz it. I never measure anything but I’ve given you approximate amounts.

4 tbsp trail mix
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp almond essence
2 tbsp coconut
2 tbsp chopped brazils
150g dark chocolate (real 80% stuff so it’s got barely any sugar)
2 ripe bananas
3 cups oats
1 cup gf flour
2 tbsp maple syrup
Splash soy milk
1 tsp baking powder

Whizz roughly together. Spoon into biscuit shapes and bake at 200 degrees C for 20 mins approx or until golden. Dee-lish-ious

Government RDAs? LALALALA not listening!!

Banana, tangerine, blueberry and spinach. Hydration and a tonne of important vitamins and minerals to start the day.

According to government guidelines, this smoothie smashes my RDA of vitamin C and A.

But IGNORE that. You want to be getting your vitamin levels way above 500% if you can. Sure, you’ll “get by” – just – by listening to the “official” recommendations on vitamin intake. But if you want healing and a high level of health you’ll take what those guys say with a pinch of pink rock salt and up those plant based foods 4 or 5 fold. 

Cram in more veggies with your lunch and more with your dinner and you’ll be on track for super immunity, strong bones, cancer protection, higher energy, better weight management, mental clarity, better bone density, lower inflammation and just general coolness 

Coming soon…Kick Sugar’s Ass in 2 Weeks!

Currently in it’s Beta testing phase, my very first ecourse will be available very soon! Get on over to the Tonic Nutrition Facebook page for more updates. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tonic-Nutrition/212587068921421

You can also join my AWESOME group, Tonic Nutrition Revolutionaries. It’s totally a totally cool, friendly community of people wanting to change their worlds – and they are! https://www.facebook.com/groups/tonicrevolutionaries/

Parfait. I rest my case.

Strawberry parfait with gingerbread granola. Two clean jars. Great after school snacks, or breakfast, or mid morning, or supper…

Basic granola: 3 tbsp coconut oil melted in a pan. Mix in 2 cups oats, 1 tbsp cacao nibs or dark choc drops, little squeeze agave, 1 tsp mixed spice and 1 tsp ginger. Bake at 180 for 20 minutes.

Raw jam: smooshed up fresh strawberries with a pinch of Stevia.

Layer up with soy yogurt.

Super healthy 4 course meal from me to you xoxo

Here’s an idea for you.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert.

All #dairyfree, #glutenfree, #sugarfree. You may have food intolerance, be vegan or just looking for tasty, healthy alternatives. Whatever your reason for looking for something different I’m sure you’ll love these! Feel free to share and spread the Tonic love!

Clockwise from top left:

BREAKFAST: Overnight vanilla soy oats layered with chopped mixed nuts, shaved coconut and topped with homemade strawberry & raspberry jam (blended defrosted frozen berries with half a tsp of Truvia).
Raw overnight oats method: in a jar, add 2 tsp vanilla extract and some soy milk to your dry oats. Stir and leave overnight. Layer up with the other goodies in the morning. The benefit of raw oats is that they’re much more nutritious. Soaking them dissolves the phytic acid which surrounds all grains. This allows the nutrients in the oats to be absorbed better by your body.

LUNCH: Fabulous falafels! These are yellow split pea and chickpea. Cook the yellow split peas and chickpeas. Drain then add lemon juice, sea or rock salt, mixed herbs, garlic, and little oil (sesame or rapeseed?). Soften some leeks and onions in a pan. Mix everything together and pulse briefly in a food processor. Roll into balls and oven bake until golden. Approx 20 minutes at 190 degrees C. Serve with hummus, garlic and cayenne tofu mayo and a fresh salad.

DINNER: Lasagne!
Pasta free
Cheese free
Meat free
Fat free
Dairy free
Gluten free
Okay….This was a little more time consuming than I’d usually like but I was cooking for a few people and it really only took 40 minutes including cooking time. So not too bad really.

Lasagne:
Use sliced courgette in place of pasta sheets, slice thinly or use a potato peeler (I used the peeler).
I layered mine up with barely cooked broccoli, mushrooms, leeks and carrots. I used a tomato passata sauce but added in extra garlic, mixed herbs and paprika for a smokey flavour.

Cheese(less) sauce:

Boil up 2 or 3 cups of cauliflower in lightly salted water.
Blend with oat milk, 2 tsp Dijon mustard, 3 tbsp nutritional yeast, rock or sea salt and black pepper.
Layer everything in a casserole dish. Top with sliced tomatoes and an extra sprinkle of nutritional yeast.
Bake at 220 for approx 20 minutes.
Garnish with fresh basil.

DESSERT: Raw jammy, coconut, creamy, chocolatey, ice cream pots.

Pre-freeze some peeled and chopped bananas. Blend them in your food processor with a little vanilla essence.
Swirl in some raw blackberry jam (simply defrost some blackberries, blend with a 1/4 tsp Stevia)
Blob on 2 tsp coconut cream (the cream from the top of a can of coconut milk)
Add chunks of raw brownie
Sprinkle over some crushed raw cacao nibs or dark chocolate drops.  

Dairy free, low fat creamed leeks…Oh Yeah. I did.

I had made this for Christmas dinner? New Years we had a spicy carribean theme with steel drum music! I’m craving fruity and spicy.

Why not add in an old classic when you’re craving a traditional feed – creamed leeks?
I LOVE creamed leeks but I like a healthy version! This is low fat, gluten free and dairy free – but still super creamy and “cheesy”.

Fry off about 6 large sliced leeks. Set aside.

Make a roux: this is a really simple white sauce. It’s easy! Don’t panic! Just try it.

Roux:
In a hot pan melt 3 tbsp dairy free “butter”/spread – don’t burn it.
Once melted mix in 3 tbsp gluten free flour with a wooden spoon. It will go lumpy! It’s fine!

Next, drizzle in dairy free milk slowly and keep whisking until combined. Add a little, whisk, add a little whisk some more. Carry on until you have a thick white sauce.

Next add 4 teaspoons English mustard, 1 teaspoon salt, white pepper, garlic granules, 2 tbsp soy cream cheese and optional nutritional yeast (about 2 tbsp). Mix well then pour over your leeks.

Keep any leftovers as a nice cheese sauce for your tatties!

Puppy Love and Coconut Water

Puppy love for the coconut water this morning! I’m so not hungry yet. I think I’m still on rehydrate mode from Christmas!

Although I do usually have breakfast, I also like to eat intuitively too.

Just because you’re awake doesn’t mean your appetite is! Listen to what your body needs, it’s not always about feed feed feed.

Skipping meals is never good so if you wake with no desire to eat, make sure you HYDRATE. It’s important to fire up your metabolism and let the hunger come naturally. Room temperature water or even a hot drink will set things in motion nicely. Choose water, herbal teas, coconut water or natural homemade fruit water over teas and coffees for your first drinks of the day. Try to go for at least a pint, more if you can. A litre would be ideal.

You’ll feel every cell in your body sucking it all up and coming alive.

Just another simple change to your regime to help you feel awesome – and you will feel it.